Speaking about the current market, Chris Sykes, co-founder of MSP Financial, said borrowers were taking a wider view of their options as fixed rates had become more competitive.
He said: “I wouldn’t necessarily say borrowers are spoiled for choice, because people generally come and seek advice for that choice.
“The availability of products is brilliant for borrowers because it means there’s a large availability of choices for them.”
Dan Gracie, co-founder of Pavilion Finance, said: “There are probably people who would like less choice, but I don’t think the choice is a bad thing.
“If they struggle with the choice, of course they can come and see Chris or me to help them sift through the multiple choices.”
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Gracie noted that while discussions often focus on product numbers, the real differentiation is often between lenders rather than individual products.
He said: “If there’s 10 lenders doing low-deposit mortgages, it’s likely being done in 10 different ways.
“It’s not normally that a lender provides lots of different products to do the same thing. It’s that lots of different lenders do it a different way.”
Broker expertise remains key
Gracie said mortgage complexity could broadly be split into lender criteria and lender appetite.
“Criteria tell you which lender can do it, while appetite tells you which lender is actually likely to do it,” he said, adding that consumers often have little visibility of the latter.
He said this was where advisers added value, helping borrowers navigate the market and identify the most suitable outcome.
“We should be getting across to consumers that there are brokers who can see through the noise and advise the correct mortgage solution for a client,” he noted.
Sykes added that even seemingly straightforward cases can involve considerations that borrowers may not initially recognise.
The brokers agreed that the expansion of product options had improved outcomes for consumers by making a wider range of borrowing scenarios possible: “It’s leading to outcomes that may not have been possible if those products weren’t there.”
